MondayWho's coming?
Group texts and emails to find out which vendors are coming Saturday.
Vendors get a Monday reminder and confirm in one tap. You see who's in.
For people who run farmers markets
Less paperwork for you. More sales for your vendors.
Market Ahead puts vendor applications, booth fees, your weekly layout map and vendor emails in one place. It also gives every vendor an online store, so shoppers can order ahead and pick up at the booth.
Free for your marketNothing to installVendors keep their full price
Sound familiar?
You started a market, and ended up running an office.
Applications come in by email and on paper. Booth fees arrive by Venmo, check and cash. The map gets redrawn every week. And when a storm is coming on Friday night, you're the one making the calls. Most of it happens on evenings and weekends, often unpaid.
29%of farmers market managers are paid. The most common setup is a volunteer manager (34%).1
68%of vendors came back from one season to the next. That's a third of the vendor list to replace every year.1
16%of small markets did any market research or evaluation, like customer counts. Those are the numbers boards and grant funders ask for.1
Your market week
The same week, with the busywork gone.
TodayWith Market Ahead
TuesdayThe layout
Redraw the booth map, export it, email it, then resend it to whoever didn't get it.
Copy last week's layout and drag in the changes.
WednesdayFees + paperwork
Match Venmo, checks and a cash envelope against a spreadsheet. Chase an expired insurance certificate.
Fees, insurance and permits sit on one roster. Request what's owed in one click.
ThursdayThe vendor email
Write the weekly email, attach the map, answer the replies.
The layout PDF and load-in times email themselves at 6 pm.
Friday nightThe forecast
Storm coming. Call, text and post to every vendor and shopper you can reach.
One button cancels the day, refunds every pre-order and emails everyone.
SaturdayMarket day
Vendors guess how much to pick and pack, and hope the weather holds.
Vendors arrive with paid pre-orders. Shoppers pick up at each booth with a pass and a map.
One system for the whole market
Something in it for everyone who comes on Saturday.
You
- Applications, insurance and booth fees in one inbox and one roster
- A drag-and-drop layout and a weekly PDF that sends itself
- A one-tap nudge for vendors who haven't stocked up
- Weekly pre-orders, shoppers and vendor sales for your board, your town or a grant report
Your vendors
- Their own online store at your market
- Restocking from a phone in one tap: Repeat last week
- Paid pre-orders before market day, so they pick what's sold
- Their full price on every order
Your shoppers
- The whole market in one place, by aisle or by vendor
- One checkout for every stall
- A pickup pass with a map to each booth
- An automatic refund if a vendor or the market cancels
The layout
Draw your map once. Change it in a minute.
Drag booths onto a grid or a photo of your lot, then drop vendors onto booths for the week. Next week, copy it and move what changed.
- Booth sizes, power, entrance, info tent and restrooms
- A clean PDF for every vendor, emailed or downloaded
- Shoppers see the same map, with their booths highlighted
Pre-orders
Give vendors a reason to come back next season.
Every vendor you approve gets a store at your market. Shoppers browse the whole market like one grocery store and pay once. Vendors pick and pack what's already sold, then sell the rest of their table to walk-ups.
- A store only opens once its vendor confirms the week's stock
- Vendors decide how much to set aside for pre-order
- At pickup, the vendor matches the shopper's face to their profile photo
Bad weather
Rain plan: one button.
Cancel a market day and everything that follows happens for you. Every pre-order is refunded, every vendor and shopper gets your note, and weekly booth fees for that day can go back to the vendors who paid.
Cancel Saturday, Oct 24?
What it costs your market
Free for your market. Here's how the money works.
Shoppers pay a small service feeIt's built into online prices, and it's how Market Ahead is paid. The site says so on every store and at checkout.
Vendors get their full priceNothing comes out of what they charge. Payouts land in their bank through Stripe.
Your booth fees reach you in fullYou set season and weekly fees. Vendors pay when you approve them.
Questions managers ask
The fine print, up front.
Is it really free for our market?
Yes. There's no subscription and no setup fee for the market. Market Ahead is paid by a small service fee that shoppers pay inside online prices.
Our vendors aren't big on technology.
Vendors use it from their phone, with nothing to install. After their first week, restocking is one tap: Repeat last week. Vendors who don't want pre-orders can still apply and pay their booth fee through it.
Won't pre-orders cut into walk-up sales?
Vendors choose how much to set aside for pre-order, and the rest of the table is for walk-ups. Every pre-order shopper still comes to the market to pick up.
What happens if a vendor doesn't show, or we rain out?
Shoppers are refunded automatically when a vendor cancels or you cancel the day. Otherwise sales are final: if a shopper doesn't pick up, the vendor keeps the sale.
What about SNAP and market tokens?
Online SNAP isn't part of the first version. Your booth-side SNAP, EBT and token programs keep working the way they do now.
What's a founding market?
We're opening Market Ahead to a small group of markets first. Founding markets get it first and help decide what we build next.
Founding markets
Bring Market Ahead to your market.
Tell us about your market. It takes about a minute.
- 1You tell us about your market here.
- 2We email you to set up a time to walk through it.
- 3You set your hours, booth fees and layout, and send vendors your application link.
Thanks. You're on the list.
We'll email you soon to set up a walkthrough.